New interactive maps show unemployment rates, high-demand jobs by legislative district

New interactive maps released on Friday by Iowa Workforce Development’s Labor Market Information team will provide Iowa legislators with current unemployment rates and high-demand jobs by district.

“We are excited to be able to provide Iowa legislators with real insights into constituent employment levels and opportunities for growth in districts,” Gov. Kim Reynolds said. “This will help communities better collaborate on solutions to meet skilled labor needs in their legislative districts.”

Users can switch between the Iowa Senate district map and Iowa House district map. High-demand job opportunities for each chamber are viewable by three separate categories:

by estimated total change from 2010-2018;

by estimated percentage change from 2010-2018; and

by estimated annual openings in 2018.

“There are such great jobs and opportunities in the state of Iowa,” Iowa Workforce Development Director Beth Townsend said. “We just need to do a better job of educating Iowans about what those opportunities are.”

High-demand jobs are filterable by education level or median wage. To be included, the occupation’s typical entry-level education has to be beyond a high school diploma (unless the state provides a registered apprenticeship program for it.) Median hourly wage also needs to be $15 or more. Occupations with insufficient data to report were removed from analysis. Only jobs that met all criteria were included.

Typical entry-level education requirements are based on national data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Job growth and openings data is based on the most relevant county-level data for each district.

The unemployment rate is based on aggregate data for the relevant census tracts per legislative district (annual rate from July 2016-June 2017.)

Sources for the maps include 2010-2018 job growth and openings data from Emsi as well as unemployment rate data and Areas of Substantial Unemployment information for program year 2018 from Iowa Workforce Development.